If you want your social media audience to take action when they see your content, there is one way to encourage them to get that done: with a call-to-action!

Yup, it's as simple as asking. If you want action, just ask for action.

Learn more about why CTA's are so important, and how to create them, by clicking the button below.

If you want to learn about how to optimize your CTA, keep reading for these 10 helpful tips.

1. Answer Their Number One Question: Why

When you use a CTA, everyone who reads it is going to ask the same question: why should they do what you're asking them to do?

If you want more people to follow through with the desired action, then you have to explain what they will get out of it. For example, if you want them to follow your page, this can be for the reason that they will continue to get updates about your business and future offers. Or, if you want them to click a link, this can be for the reason that they will get more information about your product.

Whatever the reason, make sure to explain it!

2. Trigger Urgency

Here's what you want to avoid: your audience telling themselves that they'll follow through on the action later. Why? Because most of the time they will forget, or the action will lose its importance to them.

A way to avoid this is by making them feel like the action will only benefit them if they do it the moment they read the CTA.

For example, if your CTA is to purchase a product, you can say that the products are selling fast and that they might not be available later on.

3. If There Are Benefits - Make Them Bold

If following through on the CTA will result in benefits for your audience, let them see that! And don't just write it down - make it bold, surround it with emojis, write it in all caps... etc. Don't be afraid to let this information stand out.

Of course, a word of caution: keep everything aesthetic. Don't let the benefit look like it was typed by a spam account.

In other words, type the benefits so that skim-readers' eyes will be instantly drawn to it.

4. Don't Be Confusing

As content creators, you might want to lean toward witty and clever content. But when it comes to CTA's... don't.

If you want your readers to do something, then you don't want to confuse them. You're already asking for something from them, you don't want to make them work harder to understand what it is you're asking for.

In fact, we would actually advise that you even keep the CTA sentence short, as well.

5. Include Images That Lead To The Action

Images are a powerful form on content on social media. They capture attention, they gather engagement, and they can encourage action.

So, when you're creating an image - think about what you want your audience to do when they see it. More than simply stamping a CTA on top of a photo, the photo itself should also answer the "why" question we talked about previously.

For example, if you want your audience to purchase a product: show a customer happy about their product. This shows the answer to the "why": because it will make them happy.

6. Use A CTA Every Time

Every post you create should have a CTA, even if it's a request to like your content or to leave a comment. It lets your audience know what the next step is when they see your content (and it also helps you work your audience down the brand funnel - which is your ultimate goal with using social media to build your brand).

Pro Tip: Don't sound too robotic. If you use a CTA in every post, you're running the risk of being too repetitive - so liven up the content by using different phrases and altering the tone.

7. Be Consistent With Your Brand Personality

Every small business is (or should be) using a call-to-action - but that doesn't mean they should all be using call-to-actions in the same way.

Think about your business and the personality you've created and developed for it. Is your business friendly? Professional? Informal? Youthful? Even if you haven't given your brand personality a direct trait, you've been unconsciously channeling it when writing your captions or writing your blogs or writing your product descriptions.

Don't lose this personality when writing CTA's!

8. Don't Have Multiple CTA's

Don't confuse your audience - tell them what's really important to you when you're writing your captions. If you ask them to purchase your product, and follow your social media page, and like their content, it's very likely that they'll only choose to do one of those (and even more likely that they'll choose the easiest one for them, which may not be the most relevant to you).

If you want to know more about this tip, click the button below to be directed to our other CTA blog post.

9. Be Consistent With Placement

CTA's are most commonly placed at the very end of captions, which isn't a bad thing. The hook should draw people to read, the body should explain why responding to the CTA would benefit them, and then the CTA should lead them to take action. This formula is done so much because this formula works so much.

But even if you want to switch up this formula, our tip number nine is: be consistent on where you place the CTA. This allows your audience to know what to expect from you and your social media posts.

So, if you want your CTA's to be at the beginning of the content, put your CTA's at the beginning!

10. Track Your Results And Adjust Accordingly

This is perhaps the most important tip of all. This is because every small business is different, so every small business's audience is different, too.

What does this mean? That you can optimize these tips just by reviewing how your audience reacts to them. For example, the "make benefits stand out" tip can be optimize when you experiment with different ways to make them stand out. One small business might find that simply boldening the words will cause more results; another small business might find that surrounding the CTA in emojis will cause more results.

So our advice is to be consistent with your CTA style and then to check your analytics at the end of the month. Whatever results you see, mark them down. And in the following month, choose one CTA technique to change, and be consistent with that change until the end of the month. Finally, ask yourself this question: did the change give you better results? If so, keep the change. If not, try something new or go back to using your old technique.

Keep experimenting until you see the results your desire.

Need More Guidance?

If you need more guidance - no problem! You can schedule an appointment with Owner of Empowered Social Media Jamie Cocco. These meetings are where we can dig into your business, your social media, and how to start building your brand.

Click the button below to schedule an appointment.